


Stain the Skin

by alley_cat_toulouse



Series: Hole in the Sun [4]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, One Shot, SLAP FIGHT, Street Kid V (Cyberpunk 2077), Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28248096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alley_cat_toulouse/pseuds/alley_cat_toulouse
Summary: V decides it's time to update her tattoos, and Jackie tags along.Could be stand-alone, meant to be read as part of the greater Hole in the Sun story. Just a little fluff between friends.
Relationships: Female V & Jackie Welles, V & Jackie Welles
Series: Hole in the Sun [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2066091
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	Stain the Skin

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Needles, tattooing, play fighting, foster care mention

A buzz filled the quiet air of the shop, mechanical and repetitive, not unlike the sonic blur of glowing neon. V rested her chin on the backs of her overlapped hands, looking out from under her lashes as she lay perfectly still on the padded table. Off to one side, Jackie lounged, his bulky frame filling his seat as he watched.

V hissed as the tattoo artist ran over a particularly sensitive spot near the base of her spine. She'd been there for hours already, outlining the branch of an orange tree, dripping with swaths of white blossoms and juicy fruit that snaked up her side and across her back. She'd never had an orange or seen an orange tree--she hadn't seen any of the flowers that she'd had needled into her skin--but she'd once seen a picture from over a century ago of the rolling orange groves that once grew where Night City stood now, and she'd wanted this ever since.

It was… a celebration of sorts. To standing on her own two feet. To growth. She'd moved out of Jackie's mom's place a few weeks ago, gotten her own piece of shit car, and was feeling, for the first time in a long time, that she was thriving more than surviving. And to having the eddies to spend on something as silly as flowers.

Jackie had offered to come with her, even though she couldn't fathom why he'd want to spend his entire day sitting in a smoky shop in the depths of Heywood, watching her get stuck with a needle over and over and over. 

"We're friends, V," He'd said, "That's what friends fuckin' do." She wouldn't know, with him being her first.

Her artist was working on filling in the lush green foliage, shading it deeply. It was a different kind of sting than the linework had been, but she sort of relished it. Jackie had no idea how she'd sat for that long. He had a few tattoos himself, but he couldn't sit for hours and hours in the chair 

Quietly, so as not to disturb the artist, he got up and moved to where he could have a better view of how the design was progressing. He hummed appreciatively before announcing, "Looks good, V."

She turned her head, resting her cheek on her hands so she could look back at him with her little ghost smile.

"Enjoying the view?" She teased. It was a little hard to ignore that the waist of her jeans had been hiked under the curve of one cheek, giving the artist plenty of room to explore the way the branch wrapped around her hip before continuing up her spine. It wasn't like he hadn't seen it before. For months they lived together in the same crowded bedroom of his mom's apartment. There was only so much they could be weird about any state of undress before it was more work to feign modesty than it was to just not care.

"Nah. Too fuckin' scrawny. I like a girl that looks like she knows how to cook." His laughter was dark and delicious in his chest. V stuck her tongue out over her shoulder at him. Hardly anyone actually _cooked_ anymore. His mom was a rare exception, and damn, she did it well.

"Yeah, real rich from someone with a face like a pit bull," she teased in return, her tone too affectionate for him to mistake her words for anything painful.

"Ey, _mamí_ , you watch it. I'll have you know that nobody can resist this."

V rolled her eyes and scrunched up her nose, which is about as close as she could get to the laughter threatening to bubble from her throat like a spring. She didn't dare risk it, though. Not while someone had a needle in her skin. She'd just get him back later.

* * *

_Yee-ouch!_ V shrieked in surprise and annoyance and pain at the swat, just high enough on her ass to really lay the sensation down on her tender, newly colored skin. She whirled to find Jackie behind her, face crinkled in mirth. He hadn't smacked her new tattoo all that hard--certainly not enough to injure her-- but his _big stupid meaty ham hands_ covered most of the area and it _stung_.

" _Pinche pendejo!_ " V spat, rubbing her tender skin. That fuckin' bastard. She'd have to get him back. He advanced on her with a grin.

"Ey, _madre de díos_ , what's that?!" He pointed out the window behind her. V turned quickly, wondering what had distracted him, but she realized nothing was there as another little love-tap landed on the back of her shoulder blade.

"Oh, you wanna fight me, Jackie?" V challenged him, puffing up the way she did when she needed to intimidate some particularly unruly teenage goons. They circled each other like boxers, waiting for an opening to swat at the other. 

Jackie made the first move, lunging in for her hip again, but V danced out of the way, batting at his hand like a kitten with a toy.

"Too slow, old man!" She crowed.

"Old man, huh? _Chica_ , you're on the downhill slide to thirty yourself. Don't you sass me."

He managed another swat, fingers connecting with the trailing end of some leaves that met the edge of her belly. She countered with an open-palmed smack right upside the side of his head, grinning as he winced under the unexpected assault.

* * *

Two embarrassed, guilty sets of eyes met hers when Mama Welles opened the front door of the apartment. The scene before her wasn't something she'd expected, but she shrugged, stepping over the prone form of her son, who'd been pinned to the floor by his tiny blue-haired friend. V was perched on his back, a knee between his shoulder blades and a hand tangled in his top knot.

"Don't let me interrupt anything."

Jackie immediately began to stammer that it wasn't like that, _mamá_ , sheesh, but V looked down at him in mock outrage.

"Oh, so you just _toss_ me aside for another woman, huh, Jackie? I thought this was love!" Her voice was shrill with mock indignation.

"C'mere," Jackie surged to his hands and knees, unseating her so he could pin her down, "I'm gonna fuckin' kill you, ya street rat."

Before she could protest, his fingers found the ticklish spot where her hip bone met her waist, wringing wails of hysterical laughter out of her until she pounded on his chest. He collapsed beside her, looking up at the ceiling.

"You're such a brat."

"Pshh, you're the one that chose me, _pendejo_."

Jackie rolled onto his side, looking at her. Flat on the floor, her hair fell away from her face and revealed the colorful flower blossoming on the slender column of her neck. He knew from experience that she was covered in flowers, or at least well on her way there.

"So why the flowers?" He asked, propping his head upon his hand. V didn't look away from the ceiling to answer.

"Had a book as a kid just full of pictures of old gardens. I mean, like back when normal people had gardens, not just corpos. I loved it. It made me feel so… so happy, y'know? I lost the book when I went into foster care…" She trailed off, chewing her lip, "I guess I just thought maybe if I became a garden I could feel happy again."

"Do you?"

She turned her head to face him and meet his eyes. "I'm… getting there. And that's enough."

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't tried to slap the snot out of your friend's new tattoo, are you really friends?


End file.
